Faith Swain
Faith Swain married the wrong man, and now as a widow she has to place her trust in a mysterious stranger. Story Faith was a woman of means when she married Del Swain. Her husband convinced her to invest her money into a cattle herd. During the cattle drive, Del was killed outside the town of China Hat. Rancher Burt Wrangel told Faith that Del had been murdered in cold blood by a gunslinger named Cheyenne Bodie. She was left with the stalled herd, her pregnancy and an unruly cattle crew all secretly in the employ of Wrangel. Things seemed their lowest when a tall cowboy rode into her camp looking for a job. One of the drunken hands challenged him and the stranger fought him into submission then ordered the rest of her men back to work. Faith begged the stranger to stay on as her trail boss, but he refused. When she told him she was pregnant, he finally agreed, introducing himself as Ace Black. Faith moved with the drive in the chow wagon with Jug the cook. The drive was plagued with problems, but Ace seemed to manage each successfully. Faith’s luck finally turned when Marshal Thad Veck stopped by the wagon and offered to buy her cattle at top price to feed the Sioux. Black told her the herd could easily make the trip to the reservation and Faith happily agreed to the sale. That night, Wrangel himself stopped in their camp to let Faith know that her trail boss Ace Black was really Cheyenne Bodie, the man who had murdered her husband. Shocked and angry, Faith had the men tie the cowboy up. Her decision was a poor one as Bodie was the only thing standing in the way of Wrangel stealing her herd. With Bodie out of the way, Wrangel’s men stampeded the cattle. In the midst of this chaos, Faith went into labor and, with the help of Jug, delivered a baby girl. Unfortunately Faith was too ill to nurse the baby. Cheyenne found her and offered to find someone to care for the child, but Faith wanted nothing to do with him. She finally gave the child up and Cheyenne took her away. Later that day Faith went with Jug to Wrangel’s ranch. In the evening, Faith left her room to find Cheyenne holding Wrangel and his men at gunpoint. The cowboy accused Wrangel of stealing her cattle and murdering a marshal. When a gunfight broke out, she followed Cheyenne’s order to hide in her room. Bodie and some Sioux friends were able to capture Wrangel and turn him over to the marshal’s posse. A man in that posse was Sheriff Steep from China Hat who witnessed her husband’s death. He told Faith that Cheyenne was forced to kill her husband in self defense. She apologized to Cheyenne and acknowledged that her husband wasn’t much of a man. They concluded their partnership knowing that the herd would fetch top price and the hungry Sioux would be fed. Category:Characters Category:Characters-Season 3 Category:Widows